1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a new and improved photo album page and a fabrication apparatus and method therefor and, more particularly, pertains to fabricating photo album pages with space provided for memo writing and insertion of photographs from the side farthest from the spine of the photo album in which they are to be supported.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Devices for the storage and display of photographs have taken many forms. One of the most common forms is a photo album which utilizes a construction like a book or a loose-leaf binder, with pages of paper on which the photographs are mounted by various means, such as adhesive, transparent pockets affixed to the pages, corner mounts on the pages, or the like.
Adhesive mounting means employed in conjunction with cardboard-type pages involve coating the entire album page with an adhesive substance which retains the photographes on the album page covering with a transparent plastic sheet which will prevent the photographs from falling out and prevent adjacent album pages from adhering. Even though this method provides a good mount, there are also disadvantages to it. First of all, it fails to provide a place for memo writing; secondly, the cost of raw material and production are high; thirdly, the adhesive material will change as time passes by resulting in a high risk of damaging the photo when removing from the album page as the adhesive material may stick to the photograph strongly or the adhesive material may dry up and allow the photographs to fall out.
Another means of mounting photographs is by employing cardboard-type pages and retaining photographs by using small adhesive, triangular-shaped pockets to receive the corner edges of the photographs. These small adhesive, triangular-shaped pockets are commonly referred to as "photo corners"; usually four photo corners are needed for one photograph. This means of mounting provides a good and elegant mount, but it suffers from the disadvantage of being the highest production cost to the manufacturers. As for consumers, they do not only have to purchase the photo album at a high price, but they also have to purchase photo corners separately at a price similar to the price of the photo album, the photo album will tend to be very heavy in weight as well.
Among the various means of mounting photographs, the most common are photo album pages with transparent pockets. The transparent pockets are formed by sealing two sheets of flexible transparent material together creating compartments or by adhering two sheets of flexible transparent material to both faces of a piece of paper and creating pockets or compartments to accommodate photographs. These pages come in two major forms: 1) album pages with a memo writing area; and 2) album pages without a memo writing area.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,702,026 to Shaine, there is disclosed a method of making pages of photo album comprising the steps of passing a first elongated continuous sheet of a flexible transparent plastic material through a work station, extruding a plurality of spaced lines of a hot-melt, pressure-sensitive adhesive onto the first sheet at the work station, overlaying a second elongated continues sheet of flexible transparent plastic material on the first sheet, pressing the two sheets together so that they are secured together with the adhesive to define a composite sheet, and transversely cutting the composite sheet at predetermined intervals to form a plurality of pages.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,242,522 to Moir, there is disclosed a method for producing a photo album page composed of superposed panels of transparent polypropylene film joined together by parallel lines of adhesive to define channels, each of which is divided by a paper strip into front and rear compartments to accommodate photos. To make photo album pages of this type, two webs of polypropylene film are concurrently advanced into combining rolls. Applied to the inner surface of one of the polypropylene film are concurrently advance into combining rolls. Applied to the inner surface of one of the polypropylene webs are parallel lines of hot-melt adhesive whose chemistry is such that it has an affinity for polypropylene. When the webs are adhered together in the combining rolls, the lines create a plurality of channels. Also concurrently fed into the combining rolls in the spaces between the lines are a like plurality of paper tapes, whereby emerging from the rolls is a composite web which is then slit into individual album pages.
Both of the inventions mentioned above share many similarities. They both use two webs of flexible transparent material to form photo album pages. The procedures are basically the same: by extruding longitudinal parallel lines of adhesive material onto one of the transparent material and overlaying the other sheet of transparent material onto the first one and advancing into combining rolls to secure the bonding. The major difference is that the Moir invention, U.S. Pat. No. 5,242,522, concurrently feeds paper tapes into the combining rolls in the spaces between the lines of adhesive material, and uses different types of adhesive material.
There is no doubt that both inventions will produce pages for photo album as a means for the storage of photographs. What is not achieved in these methods of producing photo album pages, however, is the creation of a memo writing area for consumers to utilize in writing down the events and happenings, or personal comments, relative to each photo. This feature is highly desirable for consumers in today's photo album market.
Photo albums without a memo writing area are less popular and are rapidly being replaced by photo albums with memo writing areas. Basically there are two types of memo photo pages for photo albums on the market. The first type has the memo writing area located longitudinally along the side nearest to the spine. The second type has a narrow loose strip of paper inserted horizontally in a compartment between the pockets.
The disadvantage of memo pages with memo writing areas along the side nearest the spine concerns the manufacturing process. The manufacturer must use more material than is really needed in order to avoid the side immediate to the spine becoming too bulky, and the photo album becoming too thick. In order to provide a better and smoother insertion of the photographs for the consumers, an unnecessary wider space of memo writing area is required and, as a result, increases the material cost. Even with the much wider space of memo writing area, these pages still create difficulties in writing and inserting the photographs, and in many cases, the flexible transparent plastic material will eventually tear from the page.
The disadvantage of the horizontal memo writing area is that the photo album will contain very awkward proportions. The photo album will end up being long and too tall for the bookshelves of most consumers. Also, such size increases the storage and transportation costs for both manufacturers and retailers. Consumers will have to pull and insert the stripes of paper every time when writing a memo, which is greatly inconvenient. In cases when the paper strips are not thick enough, it will be extremely difficult to insert the paper strips back into the tight compartments or pockets.
In this respect, the photo album page according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in doing so provides photo album pages with space provided for memo writing and insertion of photographs from the side farthest from the spine of the photo album.
Therefore, it can be appreciated that there exists a continuing need for a new and improved photo album page with space provided for memo writing and as a stopper to prevent photographs from falling out, plus allow the insertion of photographs from the side farthest from the spine of the photo album. In this regard, the present invention substantially fulfills this need.